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Overview

Use this tool, vsfs.py, to study how file system state changes as various operations take place. The file system begins in an empty state, with just a root directory. As the simulation takes place, various operations are performed, thus slowly changing the on-disk state of the file system.

The possible operations are:

  • mkdir() - creates a new directory
  • creat() - creates a new (empty) file
  • open(), write(), close() - appends a block to a file
  • link() - creates a hard link to a file
  • unlink() - unlinks a file (removing it if linkcnt==0)

To understand how this homework functions, you must first understand how the on-disk state of this file system is represented. The state of the file system is shown by printing the contents of four different data structures:

  • inode bitmap: indicates which inodes are allocated
  • inodes: table of inodes and their contents
  • data bitmap: indicates which data blocks are allocated
  • data: indicates contents of data blocks

The bitmaps should be fairly straightforward to understand, with a 1 indicating that the corresponding inode or data block is allocated, and a 0 indicating said inode or data block is free.

The inodes each have three fields: the first field indicates the type of file (e.g., f for a regular file, d for a directory); the second indicates which data block belongs to a file (here, files can only be empty, which would have the address of the data block set to -1, or one block in size, which would have a non-negative address); the third shows the reference count for the file or directory. For example, the following inode is a regular file, which is empty (address field set to -1), and has just one link in the file system:

  [f a:-1 r:1]

If the same file had a block allocated to it (say block 10), it would be shown as follows: 

  [f a:10 r:1]

If someone then created a hard link to this inode, it would then become:

  [f a:10 r:2]

Finally, data blocks can either retain user data or directory data. If filled with directory data, each entry within the block is of the form (name, inumber), where “name” is the name of the file or directory, and “inumber” is the inode number of the file. Thus, an empty root directory looks like this, assuming the root inode is 0:

  [(.,0) (..,0)]

If we add a single file “f” to the root directory, which has been allocated inode number 1, the root directory contents would then become:

  [(.,0) (..,0) (f,1)]

If a data block contains user data, it is shown as just a single character within the block, e.g., “h”. If it is empty and unallocated, just a pair of empty brackets ([]) are shown.

An entire file system is thus depicted as follows:

inode bitmap 11110000
inodes       [d a:0 r:6] [f a:1 r:1] [f a:-1 r:1] [d a:2 r:2] [] ...
data bitmap  11100000
data         [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (z,2) (f,3)] [u] [(.,3) (..,0)] [] ...

This file system has eight inodes and eight data blocks. The root directory contains three entries (other than “.” and “..”), to “y”, “z”, and “f”. By looking up inode 1, we can see that “y” is a regular file (type f), with a single data block allocated to it (address 1). In that data block 1 are the contents of the file “y”: namely, “u”. We can also see that “z” is an empty regular file (address field set to -1), and that “f” (inode number 3) is a directory, also empty. You can also see from the bitmaps that the first four inode bitmap entries are marked as allocated, as well as the first three data bitmap entries.

The simulator can be run with the following flags:

prompt> vsfs.py -h
Usage: vsfs.py [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s SEED, --seed=SEED  the random seed
  -i NUMINODES, --numInodes=NUMINODES 
                        number of inodes in file system
  -d NUMDATA, --numData=NUMDATA 
                        number of data blocks in file system
  -n NUMREQUESTS, --numRequests=NUMREQUESTS 
                        number of requests to simulate
  -r, --reverse         instead of printing state, print ops
  -p, --printFinal      print the final set of files/dirs
  -c, --compute         compute answers for me

A typical usage would simply specify a random seed (to generate a different problem), and the number of requests to simulate. In this default mode, the simulator prints out the state of the file system at each step, and asks you which operation must have taken place to take the file system from one state to another. For example:

prompt> ./vsfs.py -n 6 -s 16
...
Initial state

inode bitmap  10000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   10000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0)] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

Which operation took place?

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:-1 r:1] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   10000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1)] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

Which operation took place?

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:1] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

Which operation took place?

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:2] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (m,1)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

Which operation took place?

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:1] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

Which operation took place?

inode bitmap  11100000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:1] [f a:-1 r:1] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (z,2)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

Which operation took place?

inode bitmap  11110000
inodes        [d a:0 r:3] [f a:1 r:1] [f a:-1 r:1] [d a:2 r:2] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11100000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (z,2) (f,3)] [u] [(.,3) (..,0)] [] [] [] [] []

When run in this mode, the simulator just shows a series of states, and asks what operations caused these transitions to occur. Running with the “-c” flag shows us the answers. Specifically, file “/y” was created, a single block appended to it, a hard link from “/m” to “/y” created, “/m” removed via a call to unlink, the file “/z” created, and the directory “/f” created:

prompt> vsfs.py -n 6 -s 16 -c
...
Initial state

inode bitmap  10000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   10000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0)] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

creat("/y");

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:-1 r:1] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   10000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1)] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

fd=open("/y", O_WRONLY|O_APPEND); write(fd, buf, BLOCKSIZE); close(fd);

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:1] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

link("/y", "/m");

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:2] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (m,1)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

unlink("/m");

inode bitmap  11000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:1] [] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

creat("/z");

inode bitmap  11100000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [f a:1 r:1] [f a:-1 r:1] [] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (z,2)] [u] [] [] [] [] [] []

mkdir("/f");

inode bitmap  11110000
inodes        [d a:0 r:3] [f a:1 r:1] [f a:-1 r:1] [d a:2 r:2] [] [] [] []
data bitmap   11100000
data          [(.,0) (..,0) (y,1) (z,2) (f,3)] [u] [(.,3) (..,0)] [] [] [] [] []

You can also run the simulator in “reverse” mode (with the “-r” flag), printing the operations instead of the states to see if you can predict the state changes from the given operations:

prompt> ./vsfs.py -n 6 -s 16 -r
Initial state

inode bitmap  10000000
inodes        [d a:0 r:2] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] 
data bitmap   10000000
data          [(.,0) (..,0)] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] 

creat("/y");

  State of file system (inode bitmap, inodes, data bitmap, data)?

fd=open("/y", O_WRONLY|O_APPEND); write(fd, buf, BLOCKSIZE); close(fd);

  State of file system (inode bitmap, inodes, data bitmap, data)?

link("/y", "/m");

  State of file system (inode bitmap, inodes, data bitmap, data)?

unlink("/m")

  State of file system (inode bitmap, inodes, data bitmap, data)?

creat("/z");

  State of file system (inode bitmap, inodes, data bitmap, data)?

mkdir("/f");

  State of file system (inode bitmap, inodes, data bitmap, data)?

A few other flags control various aspects of the simulation, including the number of inodes (“-i”), the number of data blocks (“-d”), and whether to print the final list of all directories and files in the file system (“-p”).